As an orange sun set behind the Adelaide Oval on Sunday evening, off-spinner R. Ashwin came into the Indian attack and bowled a dot ball, prompting a cheer from the pro-Indian crowd. Then he bowled another, and there was another cheer, this in the tone of "hear, hear". Four more dot balls made it a maiden over, the first of the match, and the crowd now roared as ecstatically as it had for Virat Kohli's century in the afternoon.

Ashwin's third over also was a maiden, and from the last ball of it, he had Haris Sohail caught at slip. When Ashwin was called up, Pakistan were one down, needed less than six an over and were in that ticking one-day rhythm. Now they were two out, and needed seven an over, and suddenly starting to feel the pinch. It would never be relieved.

Ashwin did not take another wicket, but by interposing himself in Pakistan's innings at this moment and in this way, like a traffic cop putting up a white gloved hand, he played his part. Only four maiden overs were bowled on the day, and three were his.

It was not as if the Pakistani batsmen were not trying to get after Ashwin. Ball after ball, they dashed at him, with ever-growing desperation, only to hit straight to astutely set fields. Their frustration was visible, almost palpable. At the ground, it was impossible to see exactly what Ashwin was doing. I was gratified to read Jonathan Millmow, briefly a New Zealand international, now a journalist, write about Dan Vettori, that from the sidelines he could not say what he was bowling, but just knew that each ball was cleverly different. So it was with Ashwin.

Here was the shade to go with the light, both of which are needed to make a spectacle. Scoring in one-day cricket has accelerated enormously. Intuition suggests it, statistics prove it. The World Cup acts as a kind of four-yearly 50-over census, since all the tribes are gathered. In 1992 in Australia and New Zealand, there were two 300-plus scores, both in the same match. In 1996 in the sub-continent, where runs generally flow more freely, there were five. Back in the subcontinent in 2011, there 17 (including 10 made against minnows). This year already, there have been six in five games.

Advertisement

There is little use protesting against this explosion. Bigger bats hit newer, harder balls to and over shorter boundaries, patrolled by fewer fieldsmen. It's not possible to deny or reverse technology; golf knows that. Boundary ropes are explained as a protection for fieldsmen, to stop them doing mischiefs to themselves on fences. Whether or not this is merely an alibi, no-one is going to repeal it.

As for the record books, they belong to their times. Plenty thought covered wickets when they came in cheapened run-making feats, but no one called for a devaluation. Three hundred might be the new 200, but it will still be called 300. A century is worth whatever is its market value at the time it is made, no more, no less. In the meantime, tolerances and thresholds have changed. With wickets in hand, 10 an over is no longer unreachable, and that can't be a bad thing.

You will now receive updates fromSport Newsletter

Sport Newsletter

Is this prolific scoring monotonous? It could be, if there were no counterpoint. But there is one. In Test cricket, a wicket is a landmark because there are only 10 in an innings, but also because each when it falls is freighted with all the runs that now would not be made, for better or worse. In Test cricket, because of its time frame, it could be in the hundreds. Even in limited overs cricket, it could be a hundred; what if Aaron Finch had been caught for nought on Saturday night, as he should have been?

But because the number of available deliveries is rationed, even a dot ball implies runs that can never be recovered. Six dot balls is a maiden over's worth of them, not a wicket as such, but having the effect of one. In Test cricket, crafty bowlers build dots into maidens, maidens into miserly spells, and are admired for their skill. In contracted forms of the game, a maiden at the right time can be as good as a spell, a dot as good as a maiden. It is skill in itself, not of attrition as in Test cricket, but of nerve and knowing.

T20 has whetted this appreciation, and the World Cup is sharpening it again (but England's seamers should leave off-spin to the off-spinners, if they care not to be taken for 100 in 10 overs again).

The 50-over game has reached a neat mathematical balance. Three hundred is run-a-ball. None from one ball demands two from the next, ever multiplying. These were the sums in the heads of the Pakistanis as Ashwin piled up the dots on Sunday night. Not for the first time in cricket, what mattered most in that crucial interlude was – complete with its own scorebook column – nothing.

Poll

Who will win the Cricket World Cup?

Australia29%

Bangladesh2%

England1%

India27%

New Zealand24%

Pakistan3%

South Africa7%

Sri Lanka3%

West Indies0%

Zimbabwe1%

One of the minnows: Afghanistan, Scotland, Ireland or UAE3%

Total votes: 107384

Poll closed 29 Mar, 2015

Disclaimer: These polls are not scientific and reflect the opinion only of visitors who have chosen to participate.